Free
by St. Elsewhere
Summary: He smiles as he cuts me.


_**For Whisp's prompt, Numb.**_

_**And, also, a girl I love to pieces turned nineteen today. Happy birthday, Vevard! This is dedicated to you.**_

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><p>Thanks go to BookHunter for editing this mess and giving me helpful suggestions while I yelled at her to hurry up. Go kiss her feet. She deserves it.<p>

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><p>For most of my life, I've felt pain.<p>

_i feel nothing_

Growing up wasn't easy. District 11 is poor, so incredibly poor. There's little need for coal in the Capitol, which runs almost solely on solar power. It's the richer Districts that use coal, and even they can't afford it all. And, even then, there isn't much coal left in the ground, the majority of it having been mined out just under a thousand years in the past.

_i feel nothing_

My father was not around; never had been. My mother does her best to take care of three children, at least when she's sober and not hopped up on morphling. She's an abusive drunk, and even more so when she's had morphling in her system.

_i feel nothing_

Pain is something I'm used to. It's like an old friend; it's the only way I know I am alive, trapped in this grey place, the colourless faces filled with hopelessness and despair.

_i feel nothing_

**He** slices something on the side of my neck, smiling as blood splatters his pants, the same sort which hang ragged and torn from my legs.

_i feel nothing_

When I am chosen, my mother is too drunk to care. She doesn't visit me, but my sisters do, so young and innocent, with wide eyes and fading bruises. I am not the only one my mother takes her frustrations out on.

_i feel nothing_

It's a numbness. But a good one. Because, finally, I am away from my mother, away from that grey place. Going to the Capitol, where I'll compete and die for their amusement. I am not naive. I know I have a statistically low chance of winning. And, even if I did win, where would I go? Back to District 11?

No. Better I don't win and never set foot in that District again.

I am relieved. So deadeningly, mind-numbingly, relieved.

**I** will never see my District again.

_i feel nothing_

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><p>Blue. Green. Orange. Red. Purple. Pink. Gold.<p>

I love the Capitol.

They crowd around the Station platform as we get out, cheering as one, their plump faces excited. They're happy to see us, and I am happy to see them. They will lead me from my previous life, because there is no going back. I will either die with 23 other people, or live to be Victor. I don't know which one I want more.

**He****'****s** shredding my arms now, as more blood leaks out, thick and hot.

_i feel nothing_

I meet him in the training center. He's tall, handsome, and confident, with a wicked smile and an ego the size of my District. The others gravitate to him instantly, but he ignore**s** them all, and when it's time for lunch, he comes and sits by me.

His name is Mar, he says. I find myself warming to him.

**Just **how much blood can one person lose? I'm light-headed, and my world is black and red.

_i feel nothing_

I get an average training score, and my interview doesn't go much better. I am not one of those tipped to win. Mar is, though, and he's promised to stick by me.

**He** smirks as he wipes my slippery blood from his knife.

_i feel nothing_

It's the night before the games. He kisses me, and I kiss him back. I am...happy.

_i feel nothing_

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><p>Disjointed, now. I flash through the preliminaries, before I'm glued to the ladder and led to the arena. I'm placed gently on my square, and I look out into the arena. On my left is the boy Tribute from our District, only twelve-years-old. He's as white as a sheet and looks like he's about to faint. To my right is District 12's male tribute-Haymitch (something or rather), I think. I am not sure.<p>

I can't see Mar.

**My **world is closing in, the colours fading from view. All I can see now is his teeth, perfect, symmetrical, and white. He's still smiling.

_i feel nothing_

**The **cannon booms to signal the start of the Games. I leap from my plate and take off, away from the Cornucopia. Mar and I agreed on this. My District partner tries to follow me, and is stabbed through the chest with a broadsword that D1 has found. His blood splashes against me as I shield my eyes and stumble into the emerald green forest that surrounds this part of the arena.

_i feel nothing._

**He** joins me with a bag full of supplies. He sorts through them, laying them on the ground. There's plenty of food and water, a single sleeping bag, and two knives. He packs them all neatly away back in the bag, and we set off.

_i feel nothing._

**It****'****s** at the start of the second day I begin to feel something's wrong. I am woozy and slow. My limbs feel three sizes too big for my body, and I stumble, collapsing on the earth. And that's when I realize: I can't feel anything. I look up at Mar, opening my mouth wordlessly, but he's smiling like a wolf, and he's holding something in his hand.

It looks like a syringe. It all becomes clear.

He drugged me.

And, as I watch, he plunges the needle into his arm.

_i feel nothing._

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><p><strong>But <strong>wait. He doesn't collapse to the ground like me. I am so weak I can barely move, yet he sits by me, pulling a knife from the sack he took from the Cornucopia, sharpening it on a rock.

Why isn't he-?

And that's when I notice. The taste of the air. It's faintly metallic, so faint that I had not noticed it before. It tastes artificial.

Is it the air that's doing this? Is what he injected into himself the antidote, the counter agent? And how did he know what it was? I did not see the syringe when he unpacked it. Was he hiding it from me then? Has he been planning this from the start?

_i feel nothing._

**He **cuts me. Thick red blood streams from my arm, but I can't feel it. He's looking at me with furrowed brows, wondering why I'm not screaming in pain. I'm not because I can't _feel._Maybe he thinks what's in the air is just weakening me, not numbing me. I want to laugh at the frown on his face, but all that comes out is a gurgle.

He understands though, and his handsome features contort with rage. He bends over and cuts me again.

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><p><strong>I<strong>**'****m **dying. I know this. The world is closing in on me, and all I can hear is my breathing. He's mutilating my body, but I'm at peace. All my life I've had to numb myself to cope with my life, my mother, my District. Now I'm happy for it, the numbness that cloaks my ruined body. I do not want to die in pain. And I am going to die. Soon, so soon.

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><p><strong>He<strong> slices my throat. Dimly I hear a something boom in the distance. It's the last sound I hear.

_and i still feel nothing._


End file.
